How do you start with paid search?

I’m answering a few more questions from last week’s Webinar today. (There were a couple of questions that I didn’t understand, so if you don’t see your question answered in the next couple of weeks, please contact me to ask again and I will do my best.) Today, I’ll tackle a few questions on paid search.

Webinar question: Mike said Organic search was inexpensive compared to PPC. That can be relative. What is a minimum I should expect to pay for organic search marketing?
This is an easy question. The minimum you could pay is zero. If you know how to do the work, it might take a lot of time, but it doesn’t have to cost anything. Most Web sites are already indexed by the search engines, so all they have to do is to figure out what keywords their customers are using, optimize their pages and get some links. You can get a rundown on the free way to take each of these steps in my Skinflint Search Marketing Guide. Of course, some Web sites, especially large Web sites, might find that they have severe problems that do cost money to fix, but most don’t.
Webinar question: Seems like you are saying paid search is not as effective as organic search.
Not at all. What I am saying is that every Web site should be pursuing organic search, because it’s free. Paid search, because you must fork it over for each visitor to your site, requires that you know how much it’s worth to you to attract each visitor. If you don’t, you won’t know how much to bid. In my experience, many Web sites have never analyzed their metrics to know what each visitor is worth–those sites aren’t ready to do paid search. Once they work the numbers, then they can go after paid search the same way they do organic.
Webinar question: What do you think of Google’s AdSense program?
All the search engines run paid search programs–Google’s AdSense is the largest. The programs are very similar to each other, but I like Google’s keyword tool better than the others. If you’re just starting out in paid search, Google’s probably the best place to begin, but the experience you get trying out any of the programs will help you more than thinking about it.